Domaine Joseph Roty’s Charmes-Chambertin Cuvée de “Très Vieilles Vignes”
BY STEPHEN TANZER |
Full disclosure: I may have a genetic susceptibility to the wines of Domaine Joseph Roty, particularly their marvelous Charmes-Chambertin. In fact, I have more bottles of Roty’s Charmes-Chambertin Cuvée de “Très Vieilles Vignes” in my cellar than any other Burgundy, and they rarely disappoint. My extensive vertical tasting of this bottling in December was also a celebration of a very private family—and the ghost in the room was the formidable personality of the late Joseph Roty, who was largely responsible for creating the “Roty style.”
View of the Roty Charmes-Chambertin
The Challenge of Tasting Chez Roty
For a good 25 years now, I’ve been tasting barrel samples and new releases from Roty in a room at the back of the garage-like barrel cellar attached to their house in Gevrey-Chambertin. The tasting room looks out onto their piece of the lieu-dit Gevrey-Chambertin La Brunelle—but I seldom see the vines because I routinely arrive late on a November afternoon, well after sunset. A tasting of two vintages from barrel and bottle here is inevitably a marathon, involving nearly three dozen samples, for the Rotys have always presented a full line-up of their wines, beginning with multiple Bourgogne rouge and Marsannay bottlings. With only a half-hearted heater cycling on and off to temper the room’s chill–and invariably a plate of piping-hot gougères brought in by Madame Roty halfway through the tasting—I taste here well into the evening.
I was lucky enough to be accepted by the visitor-shy Rotys early on, and through the decade of the 1990s I tasted annually with garrulous Joseph himself. He was one of the more entertaining characters I’ve met in the wine business. Roty was variously described as an iconoclast, an enfant terrible, a recluse and even a paranoid, all of these characteristics softened by his sardonic sense of humor and casual self-presentation (comfy overalls, extensive facial hair, and perpetually burning cigarette, even during our tastings). Yes, tasting with Roty was a challenge. His protean patter—about his stamp collection, his family, military history, current French politics, winemaking colleagues in Gevrey-Chambertin—could be distracting, but his powerful wines had a way of making you sit up and focus. Interestingly, while he was always expansive on a wide range of subjects, Roty tended to clam up on questions of winemaking and élevage—even on the topic of his own vineyard holdings. Then too, during the dozen or so years I tasted with him he was apt to provide different answers to the same technical questions. That was also part of the Roty style.
An ancient vine in Charmes-Chambertin
The Roty Family’s Long History in Gevrey-Chambertin
The Rotys are among the oldest winemaking families in Gevrey-Chambertin: the family estate has existed since 1710 and they have owned and farmed vines in the village since 1817. Today, the Rotys control about 15 hectares of vines, and current winemaker Pierre-Jean Roty represents the 11th generation of Rotys in Gevrey-Chambertin. But I should note that back in the autumn of 1996, Roty told me that he had actually traced his lineage back 14 generations to Philibert Roty, who made wine under the reign of (“the Good King”) Henry IV, who was assassinated in 1610.
The Roty family has dealt with tragedy in the early years of the 21st century. Joseph, who took over the domaine from his paternal grandfather Charles Roty in 1968 (Joseph’s father had died at the age of 35), was a long-time chain smoker, and after having been in declining health for several years he died in 2008. His oldest son Philippe, who had worked with his father since 1990 and had already assumed primary responsibility for winemaking by the time of his father’s death, officially took the reins but was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012 and after a valiant battle passed away at the age of 46, just following the harvest of 2015. For several years, Philippe had made a number of wines under his own Philippe Roty label but after his death his vineyards were consolidated under the Domaine Joseph Roty umbrella.
The Roty family’s Charmes-Chambertin from ancient vines has established a half-century track record as one of Burgundy’s monumental collectibles. My extensive vertical tasting of this bottling in December was also a celebration of a very private family—and the ghost in the room was the formidable personality of the late Joseph Roty, who was largely responsible for creating the “Roty style.”
